2. What is
immunotherapy?
• Treatment that uses certain parts of the immune
system to fight diseases such as cancer
• Stimulating your own immune system to work
harder or smarter to attack cancer cells
• Giving you immune system components, such as
man-made immune system proteins
• Dr William Coley used Coley's Toxins in the late
1800s as crude immunotherapy with some success.
• first therapeutic monoclonal antibodies rituximab
(Rituxan) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) were
approved during the late 1990s to treat lymphoma
and breast cancer
4. Types of immunotherapy
• Passive immunotherapy:
• Adminstration of monoclonal antibodies which
target either tumour-specific or over-expressed
antigens.
• Active immunotherapies:
• Cytokines- IL-2 / IFNs / TNFα
• Cancer vaccines
• Cell-based therapies
• tumour-specific CTL
• tumour-derived APC
• DC priming
5. Monoclonal antibody therapy
• monoclonal antibodies that bind only to cancer
cell-specific antigens and induce an immunological
response against the target cancer cell.
• Naked mAbs :antibodies that work by themselves.
boost a person’s immune response against cancer
cells.
• blocking specific proteins that help cancer cells
grow. Eg. Trastuzumab-HER2
• Conjugated mAbs: are those joined to a
chemotherapy drug, radioactive particle, or a toxin
• Radiolabelled: Ibritumomab tiuxetan and
tositumomab –CD20Ag
• Chemolabeled: brentuximab vedotin -CD30 antigen
• Immunotoxins: denileukin diftitox
6. Monoclonal antibodies for cancer. ADEPT, antibody directed enzyme pro
drug therapy; ADCC, antibody dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity; CDC,
complement dependent cytotoxicity; MAb, monoclonal antibody; scFv
single-chain Fv fragment
7.
8. Cancer vaccines
• Tumor cell vaccines: made from actual cancer cells
that have been removed during surgery.
• Antigen vaccines: These vaccines boost the immune
system by using only one antigen rather than whole
tumor cells
• Dendritic cell vaccines: special immune cells in the
body that help the immune system recognize cancer
cells
• DNA vaccines: Vectors can be given bits of DNA that
code for protein antigens.
• When the vectors are then injected into the body, this
DNA might be taken up by cells and can instruct them
to make specific antigens
13. Other drugs that boost the immune system
• Thalidomide:
• treatment for multiple myeloma
• Lenalidomide:
• Newer drug , treatment for multiple myeloma
• Bacille Calmette-Guérin:
• treatment of superficial forms of bladder cancer
• Colorectal cancer
• Lung cancer
• Melanoma
• Medicinal mushrooms:
• Agaricus subrufescens -anticancer properties
14. Reference
• Kantoff PW, Schuetz TJ, Blumenstein BA, et al.
Overall survival analysis of a phase II randomized
controlled trial of a Poxviral-based PSA-targeted
immunotherapy in metastatic castration-resistant
prostate cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2010;28:1099-1105.
• Recent Advances and Current Challenges inTumor
Immunology and Immunotherapy
• Text books:
• The biology of Cancer:R.A Weinberg 2nd ed
• Kuby Immunology 8th ed
• Ivan roitt Essential Immunology 12th ed